LYCANID. LIPHYRA. 491 
an additional subcostal nervule, says there are four only instead of fivé as there are clearly in both 
sexes if the terminal portion be counted. This character is only possessed, as far as I know, 
by the genera Zarona, mihi, Daca/ana, Moore, and Deramas, Distant, but of the last one 
sex (the male) only is known. The males of the genera Amblypodia, Horsfield, 7raota, Moore, 
Zesius, Hiibner, and NMeocheritra, Distant, all have four subcostal nervules, but the females 
have only three. The origin of the upper discoidal nervule of the forewing from the subcostal 
nervure deyond the apex of the discoidal cell occurs in both sexes of six genera only of Indian 
Lycenidz, and in the male only of one other genus. The great size of the only known species 
of the genus, which is the giant of the Zycenide ; its extremely short and robust abdomen, 
which, in the dry insect, hardly reaches beyond half the abdominal margin of the hindwing ; 
the minute palpi ; the thick, short legs ; the very robust antennz 3 the coarseness of the scales 
on the wings ; and lastly the very moth-like appearance of the insect altogether render it quite 
unique amongst Indian Lycenidz, It is extremely rare, though its range is very great, 
and nothing is known, I believe, about its habits or life-history.* 
to1g. Liphyra brassolis, Westwood. (PLATE XXIX, Fic. 243 2). 
L. brassolis, Westwood, Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., third series, vol. ii, p. 3r (1864) ; idem, id., Trans. Ente 
Soc. Lond., 1888, p. 470, n. rr; id., Butler, Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond., Zoology, second series, vol. i, p. 546, n. 
(1877); id., Distant, Rhop. Malay., p. 204, n. 1, pl. xxii, fig. 18, /ezale (£884) ; id., Staudinger, Ex. Schmett., 
Pp. 269, pl. xciv, wale (nec female) (1888) ; Sterosis robusta, Felder, Reise Novara, Lep., vol. ii, p. 219, n. 237, 
pl. xxvii, figs. 10, 11, female (1865). 
HasitaT : Assam, Singapore, Northern Celebes (Westwood) ; Dodinga, Halmaheira(=Gil- 
olo), (Felder) ; Sarawak (Borneo), Sikkim (Col/. Hewitson) ; Malacca (Butler) ; Sungei-Ujong, 
Malay Feninsula (Ho//and). 
EXPANSE: ¢, 2, 2°7t (Distant), 3°25 (Westwood), 3°05 (Felder), 3°10, Sikkim and Assam 
specimens. 
DESCRIPTION : MALE. “ Fuscous. Forewing black, a large hastate interno-basal patch, 
and a small subquadrate discoidal spot fulvous. Aizdwing fulvous, with the border and four 
small spots on the disc black.” 
“‘ This species, although presenting all the general appearance of a species of the Brazi- 
lian genus Brassolis, Fabricius, in its robust body and wings and in the coloration of the latter 
belongs to the Lycenide, having the veins of the forewing arranged as in [the male of] 
Amblypodia [Lraota] timoleon, Stoll.” (Westwood, |. c.) 
* Mr. Doherty in a paper to be published hereafter describes the egg of Liphyra as follows :—‘ Very unlike 
that of other Lycenide, but shows an unexpected resemblance to that of Logania, Distant, and Taraka, 
Doherty, MS. It is of great size, green, overlaid with white, shaped something like asection or ‘‘ drum” 
of a Doric column, but somewhat widest at the base, the height, breadth at apex, and breadth at base being to 
each other as g, 13, and 15%. The top is marked with hexagonal reticulations, the lines turbinate in the middle, 
the margin deeply channelled, and then strongly carinate, the carina projecting both upwards and outwards, 
white, its contour even. Base also obscurely carinate. Sides crusted with white and minutely indented, with 
about forty-five vertical ribs, slightly irregular and even (very rarely) anastomosing, extending also over the 
outer part of the base, the inner part being green and minutely reticulated with hexagons. The prehensores 
I do not know.” é é roe ; fer pao : ae 
“ Liphyra brassolis flies slowly with a distinct humming sound, and an uncertain circling flight, hesitating 
a long time before alighting. Whether it is, as it seems, a protected species, or whether, as I believe, it flies 
chiefly at twilight and so escapes capture, I do not know. No one would ever take it for a butterfly ; few 
moths are more typically moth-like in flight. It is probably the oldest type of lycanid existing, and unconnected 
with the rest, except through such primitive dwarf forms as Taraka and the smaller Gerydine. It 1s the only 
Asiatic representative of the subfamily L7phyriue, Doherty, and its nearest allies are apparently African.” ’ 
Dr. W. J. Holland has kindly sent me an interesting note he published in the “ Canadian Entomologist,’’ 
vol. xix, p. 61 (1887), in which he suggests that the larva of Z. dvassolis is carnivorous, as a female specimen 
he had sent him from Sungei-Ujong in the Malay Peninsula “was covered with a whitish mealy 
deposit, particularly thick upon the abdomen,” which substance he found on examination under a microscope 
to be the same as that which covered some ‘‘ mealy bugs’’ he received at the same time, and which were 
caught on the same occasion as the butterfly, Dr. Holland arrives at the conclusion that his butterfly when 
caught ‘* was engaged in oviposition,’ and that the mealy deposit “ is nothing else than fragments of the white 
covering of the scale insects, over and among which the butterfly had been flying while engaged in the act of 
laying her eggs.” He was led to this conclusion by the fact that Fexiseca tarquinius, Fabricius, in America, 
is known in the larva state to feed on Coccide. Dr. Holland states that 7 tarquinius is closely related to 
L. brassolis in the ‘form of its wings, their neuration and their colour.’? The neuration of the two genera 
is however, widely different, as Feniseca has only three while Zishyra has four subcostal nervules to the 
forewing. 
+ The specimen figured by Mr. Distant measures 3°15 inches in expanse, 
62 
